1948 State Department cables threaten to unleash antisemitism
A top official in President Harry Truman’s State Department threatened to stoke anti-Semitism by publicizing documents that would “do great harm to the Jews” as retribution for the establishment of an independent State of Israel, according to newly unearthed diplomatic cables.
As Jews across the globe celebrate Israeli Independence Day today, the cables reveal that, despite public overtures, the U.S. was highly wary of Israel’s creation. They also provide definitive proof of what experts describe as a profound anti-Israel and anti-Semitic bias at the highest levels of the U.S. government.
Undersecretary of State Robert Lovett made the threat in a meeting with Zionist official Nahum Goldmann on April 22, 1948, according to a diplomatic cable obtained by the Free Beacon.
In that meeting—which took place in the tense weeks before Jewish leaders declared independence—Lovett threatened to unleash a wave of anti-Semitism that could destroy the fledgling Jewish government’s support base in the U.S. and elsewhere.
“As the situation is now, we must have a truce [with the Arabs]. If you prevent it, it will become very tough. We will wash our hands of the whole situation and will prevent any help being given to you,” Lovett is quoted as saying in the document. “We will publish a ‘White Paper’, which is already in preparation, giving all the facts and documents.”
This White Paper, Lovett explained, “will incriminate the Arabs and the British, but not less the Jews. You cannot expect us to be attacked all the time without striking back. We would have published it already if we hadn’t been afraid of grave repercussions in the United States.”
“Anti-Semitism,” Lovett continued, “is mounting in a profound way in groups and circles which are very influential and were never touched by anti-Semitism. Such a White Paper would do great harm to the Jews in this country, and once it is published, I am not sure that outstanding Jewish leaders who are helping you today would go along with you.”
“What this document from 1948 shows is the crude threat to foment anti-Semitism unless Zionist leaders would give in to the State Department’s demands,” said Rafael Medoff, the historian who unearthed the documents while researching his newly released book, Herbert Hoover and the Jews: The Origins of the ‘Jewish Vote’ and Bipartisan Support for Israel. “The State Department does have a long record of unfriendliness towards Jews and Israel.”
Medoff, the director of The David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, said the startling exchange is proof that behind public overtures of support for Israel, many government officials work to undermine the Jewish state.
“It happens again and again in the history of Israel-American relations that a prominent U.S. official publicly insisted he’s sympathetic to Israel, and then we find out later that in fact was not the case,” Medoff said, referring to, among others, President Jimmy Carter, who has built a lengthy anti-Israel resume since leaving the White House.
“In 1948, President Truman was insisting he was sympathetic to the Jews, but behind the scenes, his State Department was engaged in these kinds of threats against Jewish leaders and was lobbying fervently to stop the establishment of the State of Israel—it’s yet another example of what we were told at the time being contradicted by the history.”
Medoff said that there are clear parallels between 1948 and 2012, when, once again, the White House is working to undermine Jewish leaders.
“In 1948 they’re threatening to leak docs that could incite anti-Semitism. In 2012 they’re making comments and leaking stories to intimidate Jewish and Israeli leaders to not build apartments in Jerusalem or to strike Iranian nuclear sites,” Medoff explained. “It’s a disturbing willingness of some in Washington going back 60 years and going on today of using these tactics to intimidate Jewish leaders.”
Former Bush administration official Elliott Abrams told the Free Beacon that the documents are “striking” historical proof of the State Department’s anti-Israel prejudice.
“What is striking to me about this is how far top officials of the State Department were willing to go on their own, because they’re not speaking for Harry Truman here—they’re speaking for themselves,” said Abrams, who served as a senior National Security Council adviser to former President George W. Bush. “What’s dangerous here is that Lovett is not appealing to Goldmann about what is really in the best interest of Israel or the US—what he is doing is threatening Goldmann and to harm the position of American Jews. That, really, I think would be seen as beyond the pale today.”
On the heels of the U.S. failure to intervene in the Holocaust during World War II, the documents in question are all the more disquieting.
The diplomatic cable from 1948 also notes that the State Department believed the “Zionist leadership has made many mistakes,” and that senior U.S. leaders were not comfortable with the idea of a Jewish State.
“The administration had not abandoned partition,” the cable quotes Lovett as saying. “They still believe in it as the only final solution.”
Lovett pressured the Zionist government to accept an agreement that permits Jews to live in the area without a formal state.
The document also reveals that Lovett and Goldmann engaged in a political dance of Jewish support for Soviet Russia.
Goldmann states to Lovett that, in lieu of a brokered peace agreement, Jewish leaders would declare a sovereign Jewish state on May 16, 1948—and turn to the Communist Soviet Union for support.
If “the Soviet Union may immediately recognize—[and] the USA won’t—then the position of the Jewish state will be exactly the same with regard to the Soviet Union as the position of Transjordan is towards England,” Goldmann explained. “The USA has not recognized Transjordan. … Don’t you realize the danger in case the Jewish state, abandoned by you and Great Britain, will in despair turn to the Soviet Union for help? The Soviets would have exactly the same legal right to come to Palestine as the British have in being in Transjordan.”
“Well,” Lovett retorted, “if the Jewish people want to commit suicide, nobody can prevent them from doing so.”
He added: “Do you really think that we didn’t contemplate such a possibility? You have no high opinion of our diplomacy, but we are not as silly as that, to overlook that possibility. It will be suicide for the Jews and don’t think for a moment that we will sit quietly and see the Russians coming into Palestine, directly or indirectly–legally or illegally.”
“There are certain measures we can take, although it is not this department, but another one which will have to do it,” Lovett declared, referring to the U.S. Department of War.
Medoff insisted that these cables must be viewed in the context of current U.S. tensions with the Israeli government over Iran’s nuclear intransigence and continued settlement building in disputed areas of Jerusalem and elsewhere.
“Over the past year several top Obama administration officials have said or implied that if Israel strikes Iranian nuclear facilities, it could lead to the deaths of Americans,” Medoff explained. “These are echoes of what some in Washington tried to do in 1948: It’s an attempt again to intimidate Jewish leaders. They tried it in 1948 and now they’re trying it again.”
The case of James Forrestal – Secretary of the Navy during WW2, and first Secretary of Defense in 1947 is instructive
Truman was besieged by Jewish groups to remove Forrestal.
Walter Winchell went out of his way to vilify Forrestal.
Forrestal said he was being followed by Zionist operatives. (And some sources claim he really was being followed by somebody and once they were caught, but this was hushed up)
He was committed for psychiatric examination and supposedly committed suicide.
There was a war going on between pro-Zionist and anti-Zionist elements in the USA.
NEITHER ONE PLAYED FAIR.
The State Department has historically been very pro-Arab, as well as the oil companies.
However, it must equally be conceded that many Jewish groups have great influence (I am sure you think NOT enough) in the media and in the public sphere.
The State Department has always been anti-Israel.
The Forrestal case is very instructive even more.
Contrary to stereotype, Drew Pearon, the Christian, was leftist, while Winchell, the Jew, was right wing. Both hated Forrestal, but for different reasons.
If Forrestal’s beliefs about being trailed were admittedly true, why was he deemed ill, except to slander him.
Even Rogow, who condemned Forrestall had to admit Forrestal really was being followed, so the question remains: Was Forrestal nuts or telling the truth?!
Rogow admitted Forrestal was being trailed. By whom?! Possibly by an American Zionist committing wanted to catch him on photo meeting with Arabs (which is legal journalism). If it was the FBI, they would have produced credentials to the police.
So Forrestal’s claim that he was being followed by Zionists – as footnoted by Rogow, who condemned Forrestal – was not too far off the mark. Somebody was trying to follow him and catch photos of him with Arabs, or so they said.
Forrestal was NOT lying when he said they were out to get him … APPARENTLY, THEY WERE!
But Forrestal was out to stop Israel from being created. There was no love lost between Forrestal and the Zionist supporters in America.
Forrestal’s suicide makes NO SENSE AT ALL, and the body was not properly autopsied.
http://www.stevequayle.com/High.Jump/051107.Forrestal.dead.html
So what happened?
A) Was it a real suicide. Why no proper autopsy?
B)He was depressed! But was he mad or driven to madness?!
C)Why was he sent to a government hospital AFTER resignation.
The theories abound.
A) He was killed because he knew too much about UFOs.
B) He was killed because he knew too much about Zionists.
C) Why was his suicide note revealed to the public before an autopsy
Theories abound.
YES, neo-Nazis cite the case … but so do UFOers. And the facts are odd.
The facts remain.
From 1947-49, the US Gov’t was at war within itself over Israel; and Forrestal was the casualty.
I doubt he was insane. It turns out many of the claims of insanity laid to him were false. There is even a question if he was anti-Semitic.
HE WAS CERTAINLY ANTI-ZIONIST.
I do not believe he committed suicide. Who did it, however? I do not know.
The suicide story makes no sense.
There was an internal bureaucratic civil war over Israel in 1947.
And I do not know why? The USA was self-sufficient in oil, then.
This is a problem specific primarily to the Executive Branch — which tends to be dominated by the long-entrenched, careerist, and traditionally pro-Arab, State Dept bureaucracy.
Truman WAS sympathetic. But he had to fight a battle royal with his own State Dept, Secty. George Marshall & Co — which was anything BUT sympathetic. They wanted the Saudi oil fields for the US, which was poised to inherit the UK’s former dominance in the M-E — in hopes of excluding the USSR, which had the same objective.
Marshall himself, as ex-military, didn’t think the Jews could withstand the Arab invasion which he fully expected. And Marshall didn’t like being on the losing side.
This from Cole Bunzel’s summary of the remarks of Ron & Allis Radosh [joint authors of A Safe Haven: Harry S Truman & the Founding of Israel] at a policy forum at the Washington Institute a couple years ago:
Shortly previous to this, it had become clear that Foggy Bottom was not to be trusted. Without informing the President, it had permitted the American delegation to the UN to reverse its support for partition and switch to endorsement of trusteeship for Palestine — a contradiction of a personal commitment the President had given the previous day to Chaim Weizmann.
Truman wrote on his calendar for March 19, 1948:
“The State Dept. pulled the rug from under me today…. The first I know about it is what I see in the papers! Isn’t that hell? I am now in the position of a liar & a double-crosser. I’ve never felt so low in my life. There are people on the third and fourth level of the State Dept who have always wanted to cut my throat. They’ve succeeded in doing it.”
As Presidents go, HST was anything BUT ‘weak’ — but until a president comes along who is prepared to go the distance to clean out the Augean Stables at the State Dept, Foggy Bottom will always be a problem.
At the risk of being tiresome, I repeat what I noted in an earlier post (and many, many other times as well):
“[A] US Chief-of State isn’t all there is to the Executive Branch, and the State Dept bureaucracy remains in place long after a given administration is gone; it tends to have its own, abiding agenda, and little countries don’t rank high on its list of valued interests.”
This is the primary reason why we can never, EVER, rely on the Presidency, even with a genuinely sympathetic President in the Oval Office. There’s simply too much else going on in the Executive Branch. It’s just that clear.
But if you want a real taste of Truman’s experience with the State Dept in his decision to recognize the Jewish state, you may want to read this interview with Clark Clifford (reprinted a while back also by JCPA). It goes on for a bit — but it’s a superb, blow-by-blow account & a helluva read:
http://rslissak.com/content/president-trumans-decision-recognize-israel-clark-clifford-richard-holbrooke
CuriousAmerican Said:
Thank you for all these links but I must disagree with this sentence. While the Jews have a major presence in the media and in Hollywood, These Jews work against Israel, not for it. We may have influence in the public square but we have absolutely no influence in the State Department where the Arab Lobby holds sway. Are it is in control of foreign affairs.
@ CuriousAmerican:
Maybe so, but notwithstanding his personal wealth & civic prominence, he never had any control over whether the Jewish state would or would not become a reality.
What’s more, his death occurred more than a year after Truman had given America’s formal recognition to Israel’s declaration of statehood.
Moreover, DC Dave [Martin]‘s attempt to relate his search for Zionist fingerprints on Forrestal’s demise to Israel’s record of ‘ruthlessness’
— as seen in the Irgun’s 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel (which was thoroughly justified, both in principle AND in execution),
as well as such things as the 2002 ‘massacre’ (there wasn’t one) at Jenin, fondly known, until the IDF paid it a nine-day visit that April, as “Suicide City,” “Shahid Central,” etc,
and the “systematic assassination” of Palestinian terrorist leaders (would he have preferred that, instead, they take out those leaders’ far more numerous FOLLOWERS, and risk massively more collateral damage?)
— has a way of drawing into question DC Dave’s attitude & mindset in doing his research in the first place.
IMABHO.
@ dweller:
Thank you for all your information also.
By coincidence I just finished an article titled Against all Odds which dealt with Israel’s Declaration of Independence. I incorporated this info into it and send it to American Thinker. As soon as they publish it, I will too.
@ dweller:
And they’re getting away with being pro-Arab even in the face of 19 Arabs who killed around 3000 people on 9/11. And that’s only part of the Arab-America story.
There’s a link of sorts here that I’m missing.
Nothing has changed since then. These despicable actions on the part of the State Department only reinforced the need for a Jewish state.
It’s clear that ever since that time, the State Department has been attempting to dismantle the Jewish state which they believe was a mistake to have created in the first place.
I fully agree with these sentiments. More power to the author.
Truman was the “mop-up” President, who put the final touches on WWII, and dealt with its awesome aftermath. He had a lot on his plate, not the least of which was the establishment of new countries:
1. Japan was defeated, occupied and re-constituted.
2. Korea got its independence from Japan; it was divided, fought bitterly over, and redivided
3. China split in two, with the mainland becoming Communist
4. Eastern Europe was de facto annexed by the Soviets
5. Germany and Austria were occupied and divided; then W Germany was re-cast as a US ally
6. The UN was created
7. NATO was created
8. India became independent
9. Pakistan split from India and became independent
10. Indonesia became independent
11. Ethiopia annexed Eritrea
12. Italy was occupied, civil government restored, and became a US ally
13. ditto Greece
14. Israel was partitioned and became independent through a war
15. The British quit countries all over the world.
16. The Philippines became independent
17. The Indochina War began
18. Burma became independent
19. Sri Lanka became independent
20. Libya became independent
In brief, over half the world’s people found themselves in new countries under the Truman administration. Against that backdrop, I don’t think Israel was foremost in the President’s mind.
@ BlandOatmeal:
But according to Laura Mansfield there is only one country that counts and that country is Israel. So what do you say about that?
@ stanley:
In a way, Stanley, Laura is right. Nevertheless, Truman can be excused for having been a bit distracted.
@ CuriousAmerican:
I don’t understand why no one is calling out the “Curious” Nazi for the anti-Semitic troll he is. He made an outrageous charge that is usually only seen on Neo-Nazi sites such as Stormfront. Just like the typical Nazi, the “Curious” one has the delusion that Jews run the world. Israel was fighting for its’ life in 1948 but was able to send agents to murder US Secretary of Defense (according to you). Of course, you “doubt he was anti-Semitic”. How could anyone believe Forrestal who helped smuggle into the United States, a Ukrainian Nazi elite unit during World War II called the Nachtigall Brigade, was anti-Semitic? Many Ukrainians enthusiastically joined the SS and were described by some Jews who survived the Concentration camps as worse than the SS. So Adolf Forrestal couldn’t tolerate Jews having their own country because it would make finishing Hitler’s work more difficult. While no psychiatrist can make come to any definite conclusions, if they haven’t examined the patient, Forrestal fits almost all criteria for someone who was a very high acute suicide risk. Forrestal, who was a member of Truman’s cabinet, believing as all the polls suggested Dewey would definitely be the next President actually negotiated with Thomas Dewey, Truman’s Republican opponent in the month before the 1948 Presidential election and was promised he would continue as US Secretary of Defense. However, Truman won and he removed the back stabbing snake Forrestal in March 1949. Forrestal was described as he left his office for the last time as “in a daze” which would indicate probable early catatonia. His severe clinical depression was confirmed by several of the top psychiatrists in the US including Carl Menninger from the famous Menninger Clinic who flew to Florida where Forrestal was staying at the home of his close friend and follow Nazi lover Lovett. Because a famous “warrior” like Forrestal could not be suspected of having clinical depression, instead of going to the Menninger Clinic in Kansas which was probably the top psychiatric hospital in the country at the time, he was admitted to Bethesda Naval Hospital. The psychiatric ward was on the first floor in part to prevent depressed patients from jumping out of the window and killing themselves. But the “warrior” Forrestal who was exposed as the snake he really was and couldn’t also, by the very ignorant standards of 1949 be found out to be “insane” so he was put on the 16th floor in a room which didn’t have the precautions to prevent suicide that psychiatric units possessed even then such as windows were blocked by a locked iron gate. So , although , the world famous psychiatric expert “Curious American” pronounced Forrestal as never having been depressed and therefore could only have been murdered by the “Jews”, Forrestal definitely committed suicide which was his greatest gift to mankind. The incompetent staff at Betheseda did not use the only effective treatment for depression at the time, electroshock. Forrestal did improve slightly which actually increased the risk for suicide since someone who is in a mild catatonic state doesn’t have the energy to harm themselves. As for your pathetic effort to blame the Jews by asking absurd questions such as “Why was there no autopsy”? If someone jumps from the 16th floor, an autopsy could not prove or disprove it was a suicide. One of the reference from the Wikipedia article which pathetically fails prove Forrestal was murdered uses a quote by Forrestal’s brother that the Nazi-loving snake “had everything to life for” and would have never killed himself”. Talk about denial! LOL Forrestal went in a 6 months from being a war hero and then being the person ,other than the President,who had the most power over the US military to a nobody who would never hold any position of authority in military or civilian life, being considered one of the most untrustworthy people imaginable, and being mentally ill,which carried a tremendous stigma in 1949.So nice try Curious, but I don’t think you can pin Forrestal’s suicide on the “Joos”.
“Desk General”George Marshall was the typical moronic career US Army officer.His opposition to recognizing Israel was not because he didn’t want to back the losing side. The US Army has not being a junior partner in a coalition defeated any worthy opponent in its’ history. It beat Iraq, Spain in 1898, and Mexico in 1846.He was,like most US Army generals an anti-Semite.If anyone wants to read about the sordid history of anti-Semitism in the US Army read Joseph Bendersky’s “The Jewish Threat” ,”The Politics of Anti-Semitism in the US Army.” When I refer to the US Army Officer Corps as “stupid” or “moronic” it’s because I have the facts to prove it. I will give several examples. Prior to World War II, Walter Christie, an American civilian invented a revolutionary tank. However, when he contacted the US Army they were totally disinterested. So Christie sold his design to the Soviet Union and it became the best tank of World War II: The T34. Smart bombs (except some German developed rockets fired from aircraft at very end of WWII) were unheard of. Therefore, to inflict any real damage by bombing ,it requires B17 raids of 1000 planes to destroy targets in one German city and even this was not always effective but was costly to the US. The German who were the most innovative, smartest military in WWII, used the Stuka dive bomber to greatly increase bombing accuracy although the Stuka was not big enough to be a strategic bomber. Where did the German get the Stuka? They purchased 2 prototypes from Glen Curtis who was a aerial pioneer and had a aircraft in Buffalo NY in 1930s.So the US had to tremendous weapons invented by Americans but the US Army wasn’t interested. The armament (Gatling gun) which delivers the most rounds(bullets)today was invented during the Civil War. The US Army when its’ inventor tried to sell it to them was refused because it used “too much ammunition”. The only truly brilliant US Army General of World War II has no book written about him. His name was John S.”Tiger” Wood . In Normandy while morons like Omar Bradley were getting no where Wood who held a lower rank than Patton or Bradly due to seniority but was considered by the Germans as the American General they least liked the face, was demoted when he refused to follow truly insane orders of a Senior totally incompetent Corp commander.The Red Army and even (secretly) the German military had more generals and admirals who were partially of Jewish descent than the US Army.So the anti-semitism in the US is, in my opinion not in the State Department but in all American institutions.
The third sentence should read “The US Army has not EXCEPT being a junior partner in a coalition,defeated a worthy opponent in its’ history.
In 1948 the US Secret Service began investigating James Forrestal’s behaviour.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote about Jim Forrestal in his diary (8th January, 1949)
Arnold A. Rogow, James Forrestal: A Study of Personality, Politics and Policy (1963)
Walter Lippmann, Today and Tomorrow (24th May, 1949)
kl
Since his breakdown I have been remembering how for years, no matter what else we talked about,
Forrestal would bring up somewhere and somehow a variant of the same theme: how this Government, which he knew was almost unmanageable, could be made to work, how men could be found who were competent to administer it, how methods and situations could be devised to make it possible for competent men to be wise.
He was like a doctor who had studied a disease and then contracts it himself. He saw with an awful clarity his own mistakes and his failures so sharply that the affection of his friends could not console him, that public tributes could not deceive him. He saw them with such terrible conscientiousness and scruple, so out of proportion in the record of his achievements, that he was exhausted – not so much by the long hours he worked as by the realization that he would never have a chance to repair his mistakes and to achieve what he had been appointed to achieve.
The Nazi Hydra in America: Suppressed History of a Century, Wall Street and …
By Glen Yeadon, John Hawkins
There is a lot more! Next comment
Ben Gurion blackmailed Rockerfeller to get the S.American countries to vote for partition
Not only this, Rockefeller’s cronies were members of the Dulles-Forrestal clique. (Loftus and Aarons 165-71). And:
“The roster of the Rockefellers’ known pro-Nazi behavior is horrendous. As previously outlined, in 1942 Senator Truman described the behavior of the Rockefellers’ company as treasonous. . .Under the US Constitution, giving aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war is treason. On September 22, 1947, Federal Judge Charles Clark issued the following opinion in a civil case: ‘Standard Oil can be considered an enemy national in view of its relationship with I.G. Farben after the United States and Germany became active enemies.’ The date is significant. Two months later, just as Nelson Rockefeller was hoping that the damage could be limited to a few corporate scapegoats, the Jews arrived in his office with proof that he personally had committed treason against the United States of America.’ (Loftus and Aarons 165-71).
It was the perfect moment, Loftus and Aarons (165-71) tell us, for blackmail. Today, Nelson Rockefeller is remembered as the Republican millionaire who became vice-president of the United States. But: ‘. . . in 1947 he was still under a cloud of suspicion for his activities in South America. . . Despite the fact that Rockefeller sat on the ProclaimedList Committee and was in charge of Latin American intelligence, he turned a blind eye to Standard’s shipments of South American oil to Hitler. . .[But] by 1947, the Rockefeller publicity machine had things under control, notwithstanding what Judge Clark might have said. Then the Jews arrived with their dossier. They had his Swiss bank records with the Nazis, his signature on correspondence setting up the German cartel in South America, transcripts of his conversations with Nazi agents during the war, and, finally, evidence of his complicity in helping Allen Dulles smuggle war criminals and money from the Vatican to Argentina. . .[The] Zionist[s] blackmail[ed]. . .Nelson Rockefeller. . .Reuven Shiloah, Ben-Gurion’s intelligence chief. . . masterminded the operation. . .[W]hen the Zionists confronted Rockefeller, (he) skimmed through the dossier and coolly began to bargain. In return for the votes of the Latin American block, he wanted guarantees that the Jews would keep their mouths shut about the flow of Nazi money and fugitives to South America. There would be no Zionist Nazi-hunting unit, no testimony at Nuremberg about the bankers or anyone else, not a single leak to the press about where the Nazis were living in South America or which Nazis were working for Dulles. The subject of the Nazis was closed. Period. Forever. . .[T]he price for the margin (of votes) of safety [for the admission of the new nation of Israel to the UN] was steep. In effect, the extra votes for passage in the UN were bought with the blood of 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. . .The Zionists’ success at the UN General Assembly did not end the danger to their cause. There was no guarantee that the Jews would not be double-crossed. They knew that Forrestal, the Dulleses, and their other enemies would not give up. And they could not blackmail them all. . .’ (Loftus and Aarons 165-71). Read More
Curious that ‘Curious’ would bring up the issue of Forrestal, who is popular subject of antisemitic Neo Nazi and a right wing conservative subject of Jewish conspiracies. Hamilton seems to have seen what I have.
Robert Lovett was another anti-Semitic moron who held a high post in the Statement Department due to his family and Wasp ancestry.It is evident how moronic he is by making the following statement”It will be suicide for the Jews and don’t think for a moment that we will sit quietly and see the Russians coming into Palestine, directly or indirectly–legally or illegally.”. The Red Army would have rolled over the US Army without much problem in 1948. Stalin would have loved to have an excuse to send the Red Army which was infinitely more effective than the US Army through Turkey (and grab a true year round outlet to the Atlantic Ocean)and Syria. Lovett probably believed the US would maintain their nuclear monopoly and not realized it was going to end in less than a year. Lovett’s antisemitism was only matched by his incompetence and stupidity.What would the US have gained by attempting to stop the Red Army except the destruction of the US Army in Europe. Britain would not have even tried to stop the Red Army. Then Stalin undoubtedly would not have stopped until the Saudi oil fields were in his possession. This piece of sh-t Lovett if he carried out his threat to whip up antisemitism and Goldman turned to the Soviet Union for help, would caused harm to the US.Stalin was looking for any reason to expand his empire,and damage the US military and in a little over a year gave the green light to the invasion of South Korea. Stalin had no concern about casualties. Had the cretin provoked Israel to ask for intervention from the Soviet Union, for the outcome of such a confrontation need only look at the Korean war which began about 2 years later.The US and Brits were decimated when Mao sent in his army which possessed few tanks and few aircraft. The US unlike the Soviet Union had very rapidly demobilized so if the best the US and Britain could do to Mao’s army after they recovered was to hold them at the 45th parallel, think of the same US and British facing the army which killed 81% of Germans killed in action in WWII.
@ Joe Hamilton:
America refuses to purchase trophy system from Israel
@Yamit; I have a copy of Loftus and Aaron’s book. Their premise is since the 1930s when oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia, the US government including all of the presidents saw no reason not to side with the Arabs but some pretended for domestic political reasons, at times, to favor Israel while they were stabbing Israel in the back. A good example is a favorite topic of Jew/Israel haters in the US, the attack on the USS Liberty. Loftus states Israel deliberately attacked it because it was sending vital info on Israeli troop deployment through MI6 to Syria and Egypt and jeopardizing Israel’s pending victory. LB Johnson knew it would destroy him politically, so the US 6th fleet which could have sent jets to answer the Liberty’s distress calls in a matter of minutes waited for 6 hours. It also shows how one of the greatest Capos of all time Henry Kissinger who undeservedly gets credit for resupplying Israel in 1973, actually wanted to hold up the resupply and it was the non-Jew Alexander Haig who immediately got on the phone and ordered all items Israel needed to be immediately shipped to air bases, placed on giant air transports and sent to Israel as well as immediately arranging for Israelis to fly to Fort Benning GA (my former base)for instruction on the use of the newest US anti tank weapon as he had them shipped immediately to Israel. Curious troll like all past and present Nazis believes the Jews are all powerful and rule the world (LOL) but in reality were lucky to get a ridiculously small amount of land for the reestablishment of the Jewish national homeland
@ dweller:
Don’t buy this BS. Did Truman have those who pulled the rug out from under him fired? Did he do anything?
He did do something. He put an embargo against Israel fully expecting the Jews to be overrun by the Arabs. I can only conclude that he recognized Israel for domestic political reasons but his embargo against Israel was supposed to bring the desired and expected result. Completion of what Hitler left unfinished. His antisemitic remarks in his diary published a few years ago show Truman in the true light.
@ Joe Hamilton:
As allies the Russians proved to be more loyal and stalwart to their Egyptian clients who were being supported and supplied from day 1 of the war.
That said, American aid arrived too late to effect the outcome of the war. We had captured billions in soviet (weapons and ammo)and By the time the first air shipment arrived, the third army was surrounded and we were on the other side of the canal with the road to Cairo wide open. That’s when the Americans intervened to stop us.
@ Joe Hamilton:
I have read reports that Golda threatened to use nukes if we were not resupplied and quickly. Events on the ground overtook the actions by the politicians on both sides, just as America were preparing to Invade Sinai to prevent our movements towards the Canal and the Jordan river in 67′. Our quick victory forced them to put the plans back in their drawer. .
Only Jewish fools believe America is our friend.
After reading all this, I guess there’s one thing we can all agree on: Everybody sucks.
@ Joe Hamilton:
Joe,
Curious has been posting for some time now, so you are wrong in calling him a “troll”.
@ Joe Hamilton:
Joe, you wrote,
In World War II, the US was a “junior partner” to… whom, exactly? After the dust had settled from the war, the US ended up gaining Japan and Korea, and leadership in NATO. The British were devastated, losing India, Pakistan, Burma, Sri Lanka — at least 2/3 of their former empire. If Britain were such a “senior” partner, how is it that they ended up with the short end of the stick? At Yalta, Stalin and Roosevelt essentially divided the world up between them; Churchill had onlooker status. Where do you get your history from? Marvel Comics?
@ yamit82:
It’s not for sale
— and it is not BS.
Ami Isseroff:
It was then that HST made the above-cited entry in his journal. On the following day, Truman wrote to his sister that the “striped pants conspirators” in the State Department had “completely balled up the Palestine situation.” But, he added, “it may work out anyway in spite of them.” In his diary, he wrote, “I spend the day trying to right what has happened. No luck. Marshall makes a statement. Doesn’t help a bit.” On the following day Truman wrote to his brother, Vivian Truman, regarding Palestine, “I think the proper thing to do, and the thing I have been doing, is to do what I think is right and let them all go to hell.”
@ yamit82:
He fought the State Dept tooth & claw — probably harder & longer & more consistently than any president since.
It’s obvious that the prime culprit in all this was Marshall himself. If there was anybody to fire, it was he — who was, after all, an appointee, and HST’s own appointee at that (unlike the civil service bureaucrats, who, even then, half-a-century before unionization, were virtually unfirable, short of outright felony conviction).
But Truman was awed by Marshall— he regarded him as “the greatest living American.”
He seems to have been inordinately taken with Marshall in much the same way that the young Colonial Secretary Churchill had been with T.E. Lawrence a generation earlier (and with comparably negative consequences).
Don’t think Truman had it IN him to fire Marshall, though he clearly should have.
And I suspect that he realized that later, if not at the time. In fact, that MAY have been why he overreacted (compensatorily?), a few years later, and fired Douglas MacArthur for ‘public insubordination’ over the matter of Korea. (Sheer speculation, of course, but I do that once in a while.)
In any case, I see NO reason whatsoever to suspect that his calendar entry about having had the rug pulled out from under him was not entirely sincere.
He did agree to an arms embargo on “the region” [5 Dec 47, just a wk after passage of partition resolution].
In the name of “preventing bloodshed,” he credulously yielded to lobbying from his own, virulently pro-Arab & anti-Zionist, foreign policy bureaucracy — his much-vaunted “Wise Men.”
The “Wise Men” — the brain trust who would shape the foreign policy of the US for the next 40 years — were much committed to the numbers game, they wanted the vast petroleum reserves of the M-E for the US & they were determined that this country be on what they fully expected to be the winning side in the Arab-Zionist struggle.
The greatest, most overriding concern of Undersecty of State Lovett — as the diplomatic temperature rose, & the projected, 29 Nov 1947 voting date for the Resolution approached — seems to have been that, since it was beyond question that one side or the other was certain to be dissatisfied by the outcome, “the Arabs might use arms of U.S. origin against Jews, or Jews might use them against Arabs.”
Of course, the Arab states (as the Wise Men & the pinstripes at Foggy Bottom knew perfectly well) would, regardless of the circumstances, never lack for weaponry: which they received in massive quantities from HMG — who never made, or even intended to make, so much as a pretense of honoring the embargo. (And what was “Give-‘em-Hell Harry” going to do about that — attack British shipping as an enforcement measure?)
But as to WHY he acceeded to the embargo policy, the late Ami Isseroff held that
The biggest objection to a declaration of Jewish sovereignty, however, seems to have been the belief that a Jewish fight for independence couldn’t be successful without external military assistance — and the US (like everybody else) was worn-out after WWII. And it MAY be that, as that particular objection (the need for outside military assistance) began to fade, Truman realized that if the Jews could procure their needed weaponry ALSO independent of the US govt, that this would show that the fledgling state was indeed not a mere puppet regime — let alone, a US satellite. This is a distinct possibility (but — yup — only speculation at this point).
@ yamit82:
Oh, please. That’s not a ‘conclusion,’ yahnkele, but an assumption that you started out with.
Your prejudice is virtually stamped in BIG BLOCK LETTERS across damnednear everything you write.
But of course the policy was influenced by “domestic political reasons” — like the fact that the whole freakin’ country supported Jewish independence.
Loy Henderson later admitted, “Many of the leaders of the Republican Party, including Dewey…were almost constantly criticizing Truman for failure to give full support to the Zionists. If Truman had taken positions that would have resulted in a failure to establish the Jewish State, he would almost certainly have been defeated in the November [1948] elections since the Zionists had almost the full support of the Congress, the United States media, and most of the American people. The new Republican Administration would then have gone along with the Zionists.”
It’s also true, however, that HST himself had a long pre-presidential record of sympathy for the Jewish Restoration. As a senator, he’d been an active member of the American Christian Palestine Committee (which maintained a huge membership of American citizens, both private & prominent). When the White Paper of 1939 was published, he was reported as having snapped from across the Pond that it had contemptuously “made a scrap of paper out of Balfour’s promise, and added another to the long list of surrenders to the Axis powers.” And that wasn’t just some kind of pre-campaign rhetoric. He never sought the Oval Office from the outside; in ’44 he ran as FDR’s running mate, and was saddled with the presidency 80 days into FDR’s 4th term.
Like all of us (including you, Shmendrick), Truman was a lifetime work-in-progress.
(So was Herzl; one of his early responses to the Jewish predicament was to advocate mass Jewish baptism. Is that how you choose to judge him?)
HST had some of the common, heretofore unexamined, prejudices about Jews, often osmotically absorbed, as it were, from childhood; and — finding himself embarrassed to discover them in himself — fought them throughout all of his life.
His wife Bess’s family was notoriously racist — and keeping their influence out of his political & personal considerations was a handful of headaches from the word Go. Remember too, that his home state of Missouri had been a border state in the Civil War. Border states were often the locus of the bitterest struggles attendant to that great national & cultural upheaval, often the point where the two POV’s interfaced — and the residues of that clash have been slow to fade.
@ dweller:
I make assumptions based on the evidence at hand and then draw the appropriate conclusions. Re: Truman I am not prejudiced, I have no reason to be. He did us a favor and for that I could care less what his motivations were. You on the other hand are the one who seems to be prejudiced. When one of your heroes can’t be defended on the facts you try to justify them through the pretzel method by turning and twisting the matter in so many directions adding so many other nuanced possibilities that one is likely to forget my original contention. Voting for partition and recognition against imposed embargo and American non intervention until we were winning.
My contention and it’s not an assumption at least one you are unable to refute is that the imposed embargo cancels the positive with re: to Truman vis a vis Truman and Israel. If Israel had lost what value to Israel and the Jews of a positive partition vote and early recognition of the State of Israel. The United States could have intervened at any time during the conflict and save the situation especially during the early part of the war. They did intervene only when the Jews began winning and extending their territory.
My conclusions are based on those facts not assumptions. It’s you as an apologist for Truman who make assumptions to justify what you can’t by the facts of the matter. Israel lost over 1% of her population mostly males many due to Truman’s embargo and non intervention. Had the Jewish population centers of the western portion of Mandatory Palestine been destroyed by the Arabs, and had Israel thereby lost its War of I ndependence, then neither United Nations’ resolutions, Truman’s recognition of Israel nor supranational remorse, would have sufficed to reverse such a catastrophic denouement.
Israel survived not because of Truman but in spite of him, the UN or any other consideration but soely due to the resolve of the Jewish People to survive. I base my conclusions on those facts.
@ dweller:
In your reply you damn Truman for being A- a befuddled imbecile B- duplicitous C-morally conflicted D- a typical politician playing both sides of a controversial issue, while covering his ass E- A typical Christian antisemite of the time doing what they do best.
Truman Knew or believed he knew what the results of the embargo would be and willingly and knowingly acted to insure the destruction of the fledgling Jewish State.(Hundreds of Jews and non Jews were jailed for trying to aid Israel in contravention of Truman’s embargo which precluded Americans from aiding Israel) That America chose to intervene only when the Arabs were seen to be losing confirms the first part of my conclusions that Truman consciously wanted the Jews to be defeated and if wiped out was covered personally and politically by his actions first in the UN and secondly by recognition.
Everything else is irrelevant. I believe he coined the term “The Buck Stops Here”! I remember even if you choose to forget.
@ yamit82:
So you say.
But I don’t believe it. (I know you better, Yamit.)
Instead, you decide where you want to go before the facts ever enter the picture — and THEN you hunt for whatever data you can use to support that predetermined ‘conclusion.’
That doesn’t square with assertions like this:
— “his embargo against Israel was supposed to bring the desired and expected result. Completion of what Hitler left unfinished.”
In fact, quite the contrary, it’s clear that you DO care what his motivations were — or, more accurately stated, you care about what you can allege Harry Truman’s motivations to have been; in this instance, “to bring the desired and expected result — completion of what Hitler left unfinished.”
I wouldn’t want it to come as a shock to you, but Truman is not a ‘hero’ of mine.
The truth is that every man gets a fair hearing from me — even you, right on this website (and, no, you’re not a ‘hero’ of mine either) — and I refuse to paint with a broad brush or in solid colors.
I know when to call a spade a spade; but I have an appreciation for nuance & texture — and I return to it, again & again, as a matter of personal discipline.
Sorry, but life is full of nuance. You ignore that fact only at your own peril.
Oh, don’t you worry; there’s NO fear for that. I could NEVER forget your “original contention”:
“his embargo against Israel was supposed to bring the desired and expected result. Completion of what Hitler left unfinished.”
And that ‘contention’ is the vilest pigshit.
@ yamit82:
Oh — so, since the embargo preceded the Recognition of Statehood, it were just as well if he hadn’t extended recognition after all — right?
NO. Your ‘conclusions’ are based on your preexistent need to believe that Israel is totally alone in the world; also perhaps on your prior need to (continually) justify your unresolved decision to turn your back on the US.
Mind you, it may well be objectively true that Israel is totally alone in the world.
But if it IS true, then that is not why YOU believe it.
You have a personal NEED to believe that — and all your findings are, consciously or otherwise, geared to arrive at such a ‘conclusion.’
— this aint about geopolitics, boychik’l, except in the most peripheral way; this is — at root — about personal pathology.
Hogwash. Hogwash. And Hogwash.
I make NO ‘assumptions’ of any kind.
I am NOT an ‘apologist’ for anybody.
And I do not try to ‘justify’ ANYTHING.
Where US presidents & foreign policy are concerned, however, I am very mindful of the fact that there is a government within the government — and which is extremely influential, and pernicious.
Yes, and I just finished showing you — in several posts, above — WHY:
— Truman had a war of his own to fight within the Executive Branch of government.
If you honestly can’t see that — then it’s because you simply don’t WANT to.
True.
NOT true.
You just can’t resist the urge to paint with broad brush strokes, can you. . . .
No, Yamit. I told you:
— You begin with your ‘conclusions’ & then select those particular facts which will support your ‘conclusions,’
while ignoring or distorting those facts which don’t support them.
It’s simply not an objective, or disiplined, or scientific — or honest — approach to research OR writing.
@ BlandOatmeal:
Since the 1st wk in April.
An internet Trol is: The art of deliberately, cleverly, and secretly pissing people off, usually via the internet, using dialogue. Trolling is the act of purposefully antagonizing other people on the internet, generally on message boards.. Internet Trolling therefore can be any act of appearing on internet forums and boards with malicious intent.
@ dweller:
You are doing it again. It’s you have have presented all of the apologetics explaing why Truman did or didn’t do what is laid at his door by the facts. You present a plethora of second hand and Anecdotal Evidence
It is illogical that Truman would fight with his cabinet and trusted advisers over the UN vote and recognition and almost immediately do the very things that would reverse his seeming principled and moral position.
When you produce a Medical license to psychoanalyze me and after gaining my consent you may proceed with your 2 cents plain attempts, You are out of your league and your time tested method of misdirection and obfuscation when you can’t contradict the salient facts of the matter, is once again evident in your comments.
I contend he knew very well what he was doing and what he believed the consequences would be to us. You have not presented any evidence to refute my contentions. Just the facts dweller not your opinions,assumptions or lame excuses for the inexcusable.
Why the late intervention? Is not explained by you are anyone else in your very verbose defense of HST. I am not now or ever have been anti-America, I am pro Israel and pro Jews. I call them as I see them based on the evidence. You want to dispute or refute the evidence I have presented then do so, so far you seem to have made apologetics into an art form
@ yamit82:
And I stand by what I’m “doing.”
The only facts that interest you are the ones you can use for your pre-set agenda, Yamit.
Among other kinds of evidence, yes.
So?
It’s illogical that you wouldn’t be curious to explore such apparent inconsistency, to find out more about it — if you were genuinely a seeker of truth, instead of an axe-grinder with a prearranged & pre-set agenda.
When I produce a medical license to psychoanalyze you — I’ll be useless
— because what such people have to do to their God-given, common sense in order to acquire such certification renders them intellectually impotent, creatively dull, & ultimately stupid
— hence, “safe” by society’s standards. That’s the ESSENCE of such acccreditation.
No thank you, I’ll pass; no “medical license” for YoursVeryTruly.
BTW, if you would give up your need for anger & hostility (you operate on the energy of resentment), you’d have a MUCH easier time kicking the smoking habit; that’s no BS, I’m serious.
Nicotine has its own physiological component, it’s true — however, the urge for it is enormously COMPOUNDED by the emotional residue left behind by the indulgence of resentment. Without the emotional component, dispensing with the smoking habit would be a simple project, readily accomplished (& without your needing to transfer the addiction to some other wackoid habit to take its place either).
That’s a tip you’ll never get from a shrink
— and not because it isn’t true (because it IS true)
but rather, because he’s probably got the same problem himself.
And what would that ‘league’ consist of, in your considered opinion?
“Late intervention?” — What are you talking about?
Again, Yamit, the only ‘salient’ facts are those for which you have a use.
— For you, the others have no salience at all.
Yes, in your own way.
I will await the evidence of that.
@ Joe Hamilton:
Your analysis of ‘curious troll’ is entirely correct, confirmed further by his (straight from the troll handbook) statement that his Jewish friends are constantly obsessing over the holocaust.
@ yamit82:
How?
How?
How?
How?
How?
Can’t make you see what you don’t want to see.
The “America” of which you speak was more than Truman.
And the Executive Branch is more than the Oval Office.
If you truly believe it’s ‘irrelevant,’ then for you it IS.
But you speak ONLY for yourself.
@ dweller:
Whether I do or not does not make my position wrong, nor yours right.
@ dweller:
History 1947-48
1949-53
According to you Truman had to be at least one if not more on the list I provided you. Blaming everybody but Truman is not only stupid but disingenuous and an insult to the factual record.
Some of the historical events and background but by far not all you will see in the above links.
Lets add to my premise the Question : Where is the UN? Who really controlled that body then even more than today? What was the intended purpose of the establishment of the UN? America if she had wanted to could have used her good offices to enforce a ceasefire at any time. America and I must assume Truman knew what the British were up to unless he was such an imbecile and puppet of State and the American intelligence services. I must assume Truman and his advisers were aware of the war aims of the Arabs. He was aware that only the Jews would be affected by the embargo. He was aware of what had become apparent to all 3 years before. Yet you maintain that his awe of Marshal weighed against the lives of some 6-700 thousand Jews, he chose Marshal and essentially bowed to British objectives.
That may have been the position of the State Dept and other American institutions but he made the final calls. After he reversed his position on UN partition to negative, American Labor and American War veterans staged the biggest mass rally in American history in NYC some 250,000 strong and he reversed again his position on partition.
I don’t contend that America owed us anything but I will not give credit to that which is undeserved and mostly myth.
@ dweller:
If you have a better explanation based either on the historical record or a different logical outcome in contradiction to mine, I am all ears. Let’s have it.
The issue was anti-Israel politicians in the White House from 1947-49.
Forrestal was a classic case. Outside of Marshall, Forrestal was the most prominent.
That Forrestal’s story is inconvenient does not detract from its interest, but only enhances it.
Even the pro-Israeli historian Rogow, who said Forrestal was insanely paranoid, had to concede that Forrestal was being trailed – which was NOT illegal – but begs the questions: Was Forrestal really insane?
Of course, some American Zionist groups trailed Forrestal to see if he wsa working with Arab interests. This is how the game is played. Who do you think were pulled over when the cops found two men trailing Forrestal? If they were government ops, they would have flashed their badges and that would have been the end of it.
When one considers the story of anti-Israel policy makers in government in the late 40s, one cannot ignore Forrestal, who had major clout. Enough clout that both Walter Winchill and Drew Pearson both spread libelous stories about him.
As for his death being the province of Neo-Nazi speculation; it is also the province of UFO conspiracy speculation. Forrestal’ss suspicious death has been picked up by more than anti-semities; and it is folly of you to claim any questioning is evidence of a sinister attitude.
As for your view of me, Yamit82, I do not care.
You seem to consider all Goyim as anti-semites, and all non-Kach Jews as fools.
Forrestal’s case is instructive.
BOTH SIDES PLAYED NASTY!
Federal Law and a State Department working against Truman.
The President is NOT a dictator.
And you know my friends … how?!
I remember reading the back of a DVD case for a movie about WW2.
The summary of the film said, “Six million lives were in the balance.”
30 Million died in the European theater; but somehow only 6 million were worth of note, apparently.
Only 1 DVD you say; but it is indicative of a focue.
The Holocaust was awful and sadly … it did happen.
But at least 25 million other people died in the European theater; so why did the DVD ignore their deaths and only mention 6 million?
Why no movies about the 3 million Polish Christians who died; about the 50% of gypsies who died?
I am NOT diminishing the horror of the Holocaust. It was a primarily Jewish experience; but it was NOT uniquely Jewish. Poles and gypsies were slaughtered.
I KNOW YOU HATE POLES, YAMIT …
But POLAND HAD THE ONLY SECRET GOVERNMENTAL AGENCY SET UP TO PROTECT JEWS.
France had no Zegota.
But you go on hating Poles, yamit. Makes you feel superior. Wouldn’t be a good day for you unless you hated Poles.
Truman was going into an election year where he was expected to lose; with a cabinet about ready to resign in mass because the upper echelons of the State Department were pro-Arab. One wrong move, and half the State Department was ready to resign. They were expecting Marshall to quit and join the Republicans.
Forrestal (who was ready to bolt) was nationally famous. He was being groomed for a vice-presidential slot as the first Catholic to attain such a high office.
Marshall was ready to bolt.
Truman has State Department operatives openly doing the opposite of what he told them.
Truman could NOT afford to go to war with his own state Department.
When he had the USA recognize Israel, it was a shock to the delegation at the UN, who were working towards a trusteeship. I believe the US head man at the UN walked out and went home rather than follow Truman’s directive.
THIS IS HOW BAD IT WAS!
The President is NOT a dictator. Unlike Stalin, he could not have the State Department staff shot. He had to work with people who were HOSTILE to Truman’s Zionism.
Truman was going into an election year where he was expected to lose, with the upper echelon of the State Department ready to resign on him. Forrestal was ready to bolt to the Republicans. Marshall was expected to resign and go public.
The UN Staff, rather than do what Truman told them and recognize Israel … went home in protest.
The recognition had to come from Washington.
Truman was NOT a dictator. The bureaucracy was working against him. That is the explanation.
Foggy Bottom can work against a president. That is how the checks and balances system works.
In order for Truman to override the State Department, he would have had to public declare the USA had intentions of getting semi-militarily involved.
As it was, the Democrats were working with the unions, and the New York docks secretly tolerated gun running to Israel.
The joke in 1967 – maybe Tel Belman remembers it – was:
The 1967 war was Israel, the United States, and the Pentagon versus Egypt, Syria and the State Department.
It is NOT only Israel that gets this treatment.
In the 1983 war between Argentina and Britain, the Pentagon was pro-British, while the State Department was pro-Argentina.
BTW: Menachem Begin was pro-Argentina, too.
@ CuriousAmerican:
You got Yamit’s address there, Curious. Three cheers to you, for being on his sh_t list; and one cheer more, for being on Troll Hamilton’s
You are the troll as you clearly are not a supporter of Israel and you have the temerity to cheer on the vile Nazi lover Curious Adolf. I suspect your screen name is what is between your ears. Do you also believe the “Zionists” murdered Forrestal?